Former CBN deputy governor, Kingsley Moghalu who made headlines few days ago after pulling out of a pact that saw Fela Durotoye become a consensus presidential candidate, has gone ahead to emerge the presidential candidate of the Young Progressive Party.

The former UN officer who scored 243 votes out of 253 accredited delegates, after his only opponent, Mr Donald Igwegbu, stepped down for him, emerged YPP presidential candidate through delegates election at the party’s first National Convention and Presidential Primaries on Saturday in Abuja.

NAN reported that in his acceptance speech, Kingsley Moghalu who had expressed worry about non-signing of the Amended Electoral Act Bill by the President Muhammadu Buhari, said it’s high time Nigeria needed a leader of international repute, and not just politicians that had failed the country.

According to him:

“More than ever before, Nigeria needs to be driven by a vision, informed by worldview that determines everything else.

“Up till about 40 years ago, China was viewed as a basket case; overpopulated, unproductive and ruined economically by policies of the decades prior to that.

“Today, they snap their fingers and nearly every single African Head of state shows up in China with their hands out, eager for Chinese largesse. That’s what a country driven by a worldview can achieve.

“In accepting the presidential ticket of this great party, I stand here before you to say that Nigeria is fully capable of achieving greatness at home and abroad in our lifetimes.

“But this cannot happen with the normal way of doing things, the so-called Nigerian way.”

Moghalu said that he joined the YPP because he believed the party would live up to its name of being progressive, as well as be an agent of raising standards across the board for politics and policy.

He said that it was time for the country to close the era of waste, corruption, and incompetence that held Nigeria back from achieving its potential.

“It is a choice between remaining a mere fractious assortment of ethnicities and religious on one hand and building a real nation on the other.

“It is a choice between freedom and slavery under our recycled and corrupt politicians; between poverty and prosperity for our masses of the poor, and the unemployed, and between stability and continuing instability of the Nigeria state.”